eventually, we settled on me making a totoro t-shirt with a pale yellow tutu skirt inspired by that dress for her and matching skirts for her friends... *whew*

sadly, all of my grand pinning of miyazaki party ideas on pinterest (i love that that search actually yielded results! *fistbump* pinterest! ) failed, because i caught another Emperor Virus McSicklypants cold.... i finished making the shirt and skirt for paloma but i didn't get a chance to finish her friends' matching skirts... they're close though... all in all the young ladies seemed to enjoy themselves... evidence there was much rejoicing...

a few days later, i celebrated my birthday in chicago:

and then i flew out to new jersey to celebrate my bff, corey's birthday with her beautiful family:

corey also has the teensyest tinyest rice cooker i have seen.... ever... it looks like a toy!!

there were many highlights during the trip including getting lost in princeton... seriously, who knew we'd get lost on campus...

princeton is a lovely college town. i geeked out and saw einstein's house... but i was too chicken to take a picture, since it's still a residence... there was signage everywhere exclaiming "Happy Pi Day!" and "Happy Birthday Albert!" clearly, corey and i were in very good piscean company...

then, we capped off our birthday weekend with massages and facials... it was a short but very sweet visit... corey said she hadn't laughed as hard as she had in a very long time... best. compliment. evar!!! :)

ennyhoo... hopefully, i'll finish the remainder of the birthday skirts and i'll update this post with pics of them all together... :)

i saw these amazeballs dance videos on my birthday - so you've prolly already seen them elsewhere, but they're so great - you won't mind seeing them again... and again... :)

i love that in this video, some of the dancers are *airquotes* RETIRED *airquotes*... bwahaha....